New heuristics for BinPacking

[abeham]

The existing heuristic should be evaluated and expanded.

[abeham]

r14835: added new branch

[dsouravl]

r14838: Added some benchmark instances

[dsouravl]

r14876: implemented sorting heuristics, starting to work on best fit heuristics

[dsouravl]

r14976: worked on best fit heuristics

[dsouravl]

r14977: worked on best fit heuristics, update of residual space heuristic

[abeham]

r15174:

• Added ExtremePointAlgorithm in form of a BasicAlgorithm
• Removed implementation in view and put sorting/fit into the algorithm

[abeham]

r15182: Merged trunk into branch

[abeham]

r15183:

• Changed ItemName of ExtremePointAlgorithm
• Added project references

Please have a look at the new basic algorithm, I will check Dimitris implementation in the decoders (we did some of it together).

[abeham]

r15200: small changes to the results output

[mkommend]

r15202: Changes of access modifiers in ThreeDInstanceDescriptor.

[mkommend]

Reviewed all changes.

Review comments

Extreme Point Decoders

• Static methods would increase the reusability, though I don't know if that is necessary.
• Remaining design seems reasonable.
• I haven't checked nor verified the implemented methods.

ThreeDInstanceParser

• No exception handling of error cases
• Why is int? from GetNextInteger returned when it's value is always access without checks for its value?
• If an exception occurs the parser is left in an inconsistent state.

RealisticInstanceProvider

• IMHO the class should be sealed and not have any protected or virtual members
• binWidth, binHeight, binDepth are never used
• RealisticInstanceProvider is not the best name, because this is a more general instance provider that loads instances from a zip file
• Maybe an abstract base class that handles all the file handling and a configured realistic class would help.

ExtremePointAlgorithm

• Class should be sealed.
• Fields for Parameters should be made readonly.
• Wouldn't it be better to use ResultParameters?
• A description for the results would be helpful.

[abeham]

r15229:

• Implemented review comments
• Fixed ResidualSpaceBestFitExtremePointPermutationDecoder by sorting from smallest to largest (merit function should be minimized)
• Some restructuring of the methods

[abeham]

r15230: integrated bin packing extension into trunk

[abeham]

r15231: removed branch

[abeham]

r15233: fixed project files

[jkarder]

r15240: added AfterDeserialization hook to initialize ResidualSpace

[abeham]

r15241:

• Moved initialization / cloning of extreme points list to base class
• Removed residual space from base class and put it into derived class for 3d bin packing
• Updated sample

[abeham]

r15276:

• (hopefully) fixed unit test (the instances' items were loaded on sort, this was removed and thus the instance changed)
• corrected license header of newly created decoders
• changed a small query in BinPacking3D

[abeham]

The unit test was successful.

[abeham]

r15278: merged revisions 14708, 14709, 14971, 14978, 14979, 15167, 15230, 15233, 15240, 15241, 15276 to stable